


Electrical Current

by Jade4813



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:40:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29145336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade4813/pseuds/Jade4813
Summary: Wherever Barry and Iris go, sparks fly between them - and not just because she's his lightning rod. They've found each other in other lives and other worlds. Surely they can find each other now, even if Iris is trapped inside a mirror.Entry for the 2021 Westallen Alphabet celebration on Tumblr.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Iris West
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26





	Electrical Current

In the world on the other side of the mirror, Iris paced back and forth, staring at her reflection in the smooth, silvery surface. Willing it to fade to show her the man she loved on the other side. As she paced, she didn’t even realize she was scratching unconsciously at the skin along her arms.

 _Scratch, scratch, scratch_ …

He was waiting for her. Looking for her. If anyone in her world – or any other – could find a way to get to her, it was him.

_Scratch, scratch, scratch…_

Dimly, she noted her unconscious action in her reflection and willed herself to stop, forming her hands into fists at her sides. She tried to focus her thoughts, to formulate a plan to reach him. Or, in the alternative, to save herself.

He would do what he could to save her, but she didn’t know how much longer she could wait. She was unraveling. She could feel it. Her thoughts were jumbled, and her body…

_Scratch, scratch, scratch…_

She didn’t even notice that she’d started again. Her entire body burned from within. Like electricity ran through her in an endless current, from the tips of her fingers down to the ends of her toes.

_When she was a little girl, they’d had a dishwasher that had some sort of electrical short. Whenever she touched the dishwasher and the metal edge of the sink at the same time, she would feel a light current course through her entire body. Not exactly pleasant, but not exactly painful. Like millions of ants, marching just beneath her skin. Now her entire body felt like that, but she couldn’t seem to make it stop._

_She couldn’t make it stop, couldn’t make it stop, couldn’t make it stop…_

_Scratch, scratch, scratch…_

Focus. She had to focus. To find her way out of this place. Eve had manipulated the mirror. She’d found herself in this world, once. Found herself? Had she found herself here, or had she somehow made this place?

Iris’s thoughts flew in different directions. Like the glass of a mirror that had cracked and shattered. Splintering off into shards that flew away. Cutting into her skin, into her palms, into her arms. Her face, her chest, her…

_Scratch, scratch, scratch…_

What was it she was doing? Oh, yes. Barry. Find a way to reach Barry. Eve had found a way to manipulate the mirror. To use it as a looking glass, showing Iris the husband Iris had left behind. Laughing on the couch with her Mirror self. Unaware that her copy wasn’t the woman he loved. If Iris could just find a way to do the same thing…

She reached out with one trembling hand to place it on the glass. Her fingers trembled from the pain that coursed through her veins like electrical current. Searing everything in its path.

_She’d gone to visit Barry when he was in his coma, and when her hand was above his, a spark had jumped from his finger to hers. He had been trapped in his mind like she was in this world. But that spark had connected them, even though she couldn’t reach him._

_There were always sparks with Barry. Sparks of warmth and comfort and desire. Sparks of passion. Sparks that never hurt, not like she was hurting now. She burned. Burned, burned, burned, burned, **burned** …_

Focus, focus, focus, she reminded herself in a silent mantra. Focus on Barry. On getting back to him. On their connection. On their love.

_He hadn’t known it wasn’t her. How had he not known it wasn’t her?_

_Or was it her? Had she imagined that other Iris? Maybe it had been her the whole time. Split into a million little pieces, and Barry had held one of those shards in his hands._

Barry would find her. He always found her. He’d told her he would always come running home to her, but he was home now. She was the one who was lost.

_Lost? She’d been right there with him. Hadn’t she?_

_He would come for her. Come running. Like a lightning strike. Like a streak of light. Like a bolt of electricity. He would come for her. He always did. She had once reached into the speed force and pulled him out, telling him…telling him…_

She’d told him to come home to her. And he had. On the other side of this mirror was the world and the husband she’d lost. He’d found his way to her side through time and…

_Time. They had no time. She was running out of time. She could feel it. She was losing her sanity. Losing herself._

The sparks connected them. Had always connected them. The sparks were how she’d once discovered he was the Flash.

 _Their hands met. A spark jumped from his to hers. And she knew. She knew, she_ knew _, she knew, she knew, she knew…_

The sparks would bring her back to him. Or him to her. But in the back of her mind was a thought, as elusive as the wind. She tried to grab onto it, but focusing on one thought for too long hurt. Like touching the dishwasher and the sink, daring her body to withstand the burning current of electricity for as long as she dared.

The speed force was dead. Barry was dead? No, Barry was alive. _She_ was dead.

Dead? Lost. Her head ached, and Iris let out a cry as she collapsed forward, her body sagging against the mirror as she went to her knees. She needed to be strong. For Barry. For herself. But it hurt, and the longer she was in this dreadful place, the worse it would get.

Her hands were pressed against the glass when she saw it shimmer and fade. Had she somehow triggered its power? Or was this another of Eve’s tricks, taunting her from the world in which Iris belonged?

Even if Iris could have gathered her thoughts long enough to seriously ponder the question, it wouldn’t have mattered. He was on the other side. Barry. Her husband. Her best friend. The man she loved.

_He had called her his lightning rod. If only she could draw him to her now._

He looked broken. Defeated. Tears in his eyes as he pressed his hands upon the glass on the other side of the mirror. Staring into his reflection, but she knew he was looking for _her_.

Her heart ached for him. _Every part of her ached_. She would give anything to feel him reach through this glass, to pull her out of this splintered world of confusion and pain as she had once pulled him from the speed force prison formed from his own memories.

Her hands trembled as they slid across the glass. She didn’t know how long this vision would last, and so she swept her eyes over the face she loved so much. Memorizing every detail as thought this might be for the last time.

_Knowing it might be for the last time._

He was so precious to her. Her Barry. Her husband. Her best friend. The man she loved.

Though he would never know, she placed her palms the image of his in the mirror. His hands were bigger than hers, fingers extending beyond the place where she pressed against the glass.

_One breath. Two. Three._

It didn’t stop the pain. Didn’t even temper it a little. But they had been separated like this before, once. A pane of glass between them. He had vibrated to slide between the molecules so that he could press his hand against hers.

 _Barry, come find me_ , she begged as, exhausted, her eyes fell shut and she sagged her forehead against the cool surface of the mirror. _I don’t know how much longer I can last._

It might have been a figment of her imagination. It was so hard to tell fantasy from reality anymore. It was almost certainly impossible. But for one second, the fire burning beneath her skin seemed to fade, and she could swear she felt a spark jump from his hand to hers. Bringing a brief moment of solace before the pain began again.

Her eyes flew open in time to see the image in the mirror fade, and she was faced with her reflection once more.

_“The sound of your voice will always bring me home.”_

But he was the one who was home now. Not she.

It didn’t matter. He would come for her. He always came for her.

_Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch…_


End file.
